


and I on a soft pillow will lay down my limbs

by starraya



Series: the long ache of love [2]
Category: Holby City
Genre: Dementia, F/F, death by natural causes (broken heart), death by stroke, lesbians growing old together, reference to Adrienne's abuse of Serena, reference to Serena's depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 07:20:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12882894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starraya/pseuds/starraya
Summary: She was never good at waiting.





	and I on a soft pillow will lay down my limbs

Bernie isn’t good at waiting. Out in the field, waiting costs lives. She’s good at emergency surgery. She’s good at throwing herself into the midst of a storm, but not for stopping for breath afterwards, when the dust settles, when you look around at the scattered debris and wonder how you can rebuild, if you can rebuild.

  
She never looks. Always runs.

  
Until Serena.

  
-

  
After she returns from Kiev, after their kiss in the office – and their many kisses, in the car, on the pathway leading to Serena’s house, up against the front door the moment its shut, in the hallway – “Bed. Now.” – and finally in Serena’s room, at the front of her bed, in the middle of luxurious sheets, in the glow of moonlight and, then, in the soft grey light of November dawn – Bernie promises to be better, promises never to run again. (Unless Serena’s running away with her too.)

  
Bernie thinks she knows what it is to wait for someone you love. Sometimes, she sees Serena sleeping next to her and feels the whole weight of the 50 years she lived without knowing this woman. Without not seeing her smile, or hearing her laugh, or holding her in her arms. Those 50 years without Serena don’t feel like a waste, like a loss, just a wait. Life leading her slowly to love.

  
Bernie still waits for Serena, but they’re little instants. There’s waiting in the queue at Pulses, even though the length is ridiculous, just to watch Serena’s grateful sip of the coffee, to watch her eyes slip shut and to hear a little moan.

  
Bernie smirks. “Sometimes I think you’d much rather take the coffee to bed than me.”

  
Serena swats Bernie’s arm. “Oh, shush.”

  
She puts down the coffee and kisses Bernie, dipping her tongue into her mouth so Bernie can taste the richness of the coffee as hands wander down Bernie’s back to her arse.

  
“Can coffee do this?” Serena asks when she pulls back. Pats Bernie’s arse playfully, before stepping back to tuck a stack of folders under her arm and to pick up her coffee again.

  
“Now, Major.” Serena tilts her head to their office door through which their ward grows ever busier. She wiggles her eyebrows.

 

“Work to do.”

  
There’s waiting for Serena to make the special gravy for Christmas dinner, something Bernie thinks Serena takes far to seriously until Serena orders her to close her eyes and props a spoon in front of her mouth and Bernie closes her lips over the spoon and dear lord, it tastes good.

  
Then there’s New Year’s Eve. They go to Albies early in the evening, spend the evening getting tipsy with their co-workers, but Bernie knows Serena wants them to welcome the New Year in another way. _I didn’t have you have the start of the year, and I very much want you to myself at the end of it._

  
Serena tells Bernie that she’ll leave Albies first, Bernie can join her at home in half an hour.

Bernie waits – not very well, though. She fidgets. She creases a beer mat in half. It’s the not knowing what Serena is doing, what Serena is planning, that drives her crazy. When it comes, Bernie practically jumps in the taxi.

  
Serena hears the front door close and calls down from upstairs. “Five minutes.”

  
“What else do you need to do?”

  
“Berenice Wolfe, do you want me to burn down this house. Five minutes.”

  
Oh, Bernie thinks, candles. Nice. Definitely. But she’s much more interested in what Serena is wearing, than what the room is.  
Bernie hangs her coat, toes off shoes, shucks off her jacket. Wonders if unbuttoning her shirt is too presumptuous. She shuffles from foot to foot.

  
“Serena?”

  
“Okay.”

  
She appears at the top of the stairs, all crimson lace and pale skin. Bernie’s mind can barely catalogue the sight in front of her. Suspenders. Stockings. High heels. The most sinful shade of scarlet Serena’s lips.

  
“Alright, dear?” Serena says when words fail Bernie.

  
“Yes.” The word seems to stick to her mouth. “Yes.”

  
“Come on then.”

  
Bernie doesn’t need asking twice.

  
The next morning, the spice of the candles lingers in the room, mixed with the scent of them. Frost crystalizes on the windowsill outside. Bernie sees a strip of white sky though the gap in the curtains.

  
She hops out of bed – throws the covers off herself quick, like the ripping of plaster – or she’ll never get up. She nicks Serena’s warm, fluffy shiraz-red dressing gown off the door hook and knots it tight.  
She pulls the duvet up to Serena's shoulders and heads downstairs to fix coffee and breakfast.

  
-

  
Bernie doesn’t learn how to wait until all can do is wait.

  
She can wait by Serena’s side as her and Edward decide to turn off Elinor’s life support. She can wait when Serena clings to her and sobs in the days leading up to the funeral. She can wait when, after the wake, Serena pushes her away. When she loses all colour in her cheeks and all light in her eyes.

  
Bernie gives Serena space, goes back to her flat and waits. She waits days without any word from Serena but a couple of texts. She misses her voice, her touch. She misses her smile.

  
She misses the pieces of Serena that may never return.

  
Bernie waits, patiently – always there to give support, but never to force it on Serena. On the day Serena invites her back in her house, Bernie comes prepared with enough food for a small army – she knows groceries aren’t at the forefront of Serena’s mind – and she lies that she was just shopping when she got Serena’s call and thought she might as well pick up some things for Serena too.

  
She fears that Serena may feel as if she’s mothering her if she cooks tea as well. So instead she brings up the idea of take-out. Serena gestures to her full-to-the-brim freezer. “Take-out. Great idea. I mean we’ve scarcely got anything in.”

  
Serena’s tone is dry and bitter. Her lips don’t quirk, her eyes don’t shine but Bernie’s heart lurches all the same. Because it sounds like the old Serena. Her razor-sharp wit.

  
Bernie fell in love with Serena’s wit – _I think you’re meant to light it_ – before anything else.

  
Bernie tells Serena that its Fish and Chips night anyway, and hurries to the shops before she can see in Serena’s eyes exactly what she herself is thinking. Jason isn’t here. He’s at Alan’s for two weeks.

  
And Fish and Chips night belongs to another time.

  
After tea, Bernie waits for Serena to talk. To tell her what to do. Whether to go. Whether to stay. 

 

Serena leads her upstairs, into the shower. They don’t kiss. Don’t touch each other to excite or arouse, only to comfort, to clean. Bernie squeezes shower gel into her hands and rubs it into Serena’s skin. She prolongs the touch more than necessary – unsure when Serena will let her touch her again. Unsure when they will be this close, body to body, breathes intermingling, again.

  
Bernie takes Serena’s hand and traces the red lines on her palm.

  
“I er . . . changed her flowers today. Someone had left roses.”

  
Bernie replies by pressing her lips against the marks.

  
-

Bernie lets Serena go to France. Waits for her in England until she can wait no more, until the city feels less and less like home without Serena in it. AAU wasn’t never hers, it was Serena’s. Then it was theirs.

  
But it wasn’t never hers and it’s not hers now.

  
They close the trauma unit – the piece of her she’d hoped to leave in Holby when her time was up there, the monument to her and Serena’s partnership – and Bernie boards the Eurostar.

  
She waits with ease on her journey to the south of France. Nerves dull her anticipation. She hasn’t seen Serena in weeks and weeks. What if she waited too long? Bernie will give Serena anything she needs, but what if part of what she needs is no longer Bernie?

  
When she sees Serena for the first time – skin sun-kissed, hair silver and soft – time freezes. Speeds up. Seems to fall back into its proper rhythm.

  
Waiting is simply out of the question.

  
All Bernie can do in that moment is run to Serena and throw her arms around her. Tears she hadn’t meant to shed wet Serena’s blouse. Serena holds her. Breathes her in. Bernie smells of Holby. Of AAU.

  
“Can I . . . use your shower?”

Bernie stumbles over her words when they take her suitcase into Serena’s kitchen.

  
“Yes, but only if you pay rent and I must warn you that –“ Serena bursts into laughter. “Of course, you daft sod. There’s a bath too if you fancy a good old soak.”

  
Serena kisses her. A short, affectionate press of lips to lips but Bernie wraps her arms around Serena, locks her close to her. Kisses her deeper and deeper. Harder. Until Serena is moaning into her mouth. Until she is palming Bernie’s breasts through her shirt. Until Bernie thinks _fuck it_ and lifts Serena onto the kitchen table.

  
“Now Bernie,” Serena tuts. “Good things come to those who wait.” She crosses her arms, but she isn’t fooling Bernie. Her pupils are wide, her chest flushed and – Bernie sneaks a hand under Serena’s blouse to thumb a hard nipple – so very eager.

  
Bernie gently uncrosses Serena’s arms and places her hands either side of her hips.

  
“Talking of coming . . . “

  
“Berenice Wolfe!”

  
Bernie grins, eyes devilish. How long will it be until Serena can’t form her name?

  
-

  
When the day comes, neither of them want to wait alone for the other. They plan it so they walk down together, side by side. They turn to face each other and lace their fingers together. They only break the touch so that Bernie can slip the ring on Serena’s finger and so Serena slip one on Bernie’s in return.

  
-

  
They retire in their sixties. Drink far too much at their joint leaving party at Albies and spend more hours in bed than out of it the next day.

  
-

  
Serena doesn’t cry when she gets the diagnosis. She’d knew. She’d watched out for the signs.

  
Serena doesn’t cry but Bernie does when they sit together on the sofa and Serena stares blankly ahead and Bernie can think of nothing to say – everything is so trite and meaningless, _at least its early onset, there are measures they can take to prolong quality of life_.

  
Serena takes a breath. “I want a divorce.”

  
“What? You’ve having a laugh.”

  
“I’m not. I want a divorce."

  
“Serena, you can’t –”

  
“Here.” Serena slides off her wedding ring, presses it into Bernie’s hands. “Have it.”

  
She stands up before Bernie can and try and give it her back.

  
“Serena, no.”

  
“Please.” Serena’s voice cracks. “Please, don’t make this difficult.”

  
“Difficult?” Bernie scoffs. “Do you even remember what we promised each other 24 years ago? The vows?”

  
“That’s why I’m doing this.”

  
“Well you’ve lost your mind if you think I’m going to sign the papers. If you think for one second I’m going to leave you alone in this.”

  
“I won’t do it Bernie. I won’t!” Serena shouts. “I won’t become like my mother. I won’t put you through that!” Serena presses a hand to her face, dissolves into sobs. “I won’t.”

  
Bernie takes Serena’s trembling hands in her own hands. “Nothing you can say will make me leave you Serena. How do you think I could ever leave you?”

  
Serena looks down at their entwined fingers. “I won’t hurt you.”

  
“I know that.”

  
“You don’t. I don’t.”

  
Bernie places a finger until Serena’s chin. Softly tilts her head up. “Look at me. We’ve got the diagnosis. We can prepare. We can manage. And we will manage.”

  
Bernie rests her forehead against Serena’s.

  
“We will manage. Together.”

  
-

  
Serena forgets Elinor before she forgets Bernie. After they wake, Serena takes her glasses off the bedside table, slips them on and opens her diary. She looks down and smiles as if she knows a secret no one else does. Bernie doesn’t know why. They have only planned a short walk. It’s the last warm day of October, the forecast says. Bernie laughed at that. It’s only one-week in.Some leaves have fallen, but most trees are still bright amber.

  
Bernie doesn’t realise anything is wrong until they pull on their walking boots and Serena asks when Bernie thinks Elinor will arrive.

  
Bernie’s heart shatters.

  
-

  
It’s sudden and unexpected when it happens. Bernie is unhooking the wreath of holly from the front door and when she stomps snow into the hallway and looks into the living room, at Serena’s armchair, it’s too late for an ambulance.

  
She drops the wreath and presses her fingers to Serena’s wrist. After a moment, she kisses the skin there. She kneels and brings Serena’s papery hand to her lips.

  
“Serena McKinnie,” she smiles as tears course down her cheeks. “You always had to be first at everything.”

  
-

  
The dementia never progressed to the point Serena feared it would.

  
“I don’t want to lose myself. I can feel it happening Bernie and I can’t, I won’t lose myself,” Serena had whispered against Bernie’s skin, her head on her chest, after the last time they had made love.

  
Bernie watches them lower her wife into the ground. Cameron clutches her left arm, Charlotte her right, as if they are expecting Bernie to collapse any second to the ground – but she doesn’t.

  
Bernie looks up to the sky and silently asks Serena to give Elinor a kiss for her.

  
-

  
She can barely keep her eyes open by the time she gingerly sits in bed and glances at her watch. 5:49. Goodness. This will be a first for her.

Serena would tease her if she knew. The great Major going to bed at 5.49. 

  
Bernie reaches for the photo frame on the cabinet next to her. She traces the smiling women in the picture, caught in a flurry of confetti. She remembers the stir of butterflies in her belly the night before their wedding – all those hours of waiting for Serena in the dark.

  
The last day of January draws to a close. Bernie lies down. She hugs the photo frame to her chest and closes her eyes.

  
-

  
She was never good at waiting.


End file.
